News in 140 Characters

With social media becoming more and more popular, we cannot expect for it only to be for self branding, communication between businesses and consumers or even simple conversing amongst youth. Facebook and Twitter may be mediums used by big businesses to add to their revenue, but it is becoming more prevalent in the news world and helps add to their ratings. For about the past four months, I have followed news stations and newspapers such as: KAKE, KWCH, KSN, KMBC, KCTV, The Wichita Eagle, The Kansas City Star, WNEM and of course CNN. Along with the several that I listed, I’ve taken time to follow several reporters and even producers. Little did I know, I would be in a class in which the professor would ask me to critique many local news outlets and their use of Twitter. With that said, I have looked at KAKE, KWCH, The Wichita Eagle, KSN and KFDI in hopes of discussing which one does the best at tweeting.

What amazes me the most is how the station that I felt was doing the best has quickly fallen off.  During August and September, I was sure that KAKE news would win this battle. Not only did they tweet frequently, but they made a habit of re-tweeting their anchors throughout the day. Don’t be fooled though, the anchors weren’t the only ones who received the Twitter love. Whenever there was a story of importance coming out of Kansas City, KAKE would re-tweet their sister station, KMBC.

Unlike the station that I believe has taken the lead, KAKE made sure that each tweet was different. Even if it was the same story, they tweeted a different 140 characters to describe it so there were no repeats. I’m not quite sure how most people would feel when following a news station on Twitter, but I could appreciate that they didn’t overdo it and bombard my timeline every ten minutes. On the contrary, I got updates from them just a few times an hour (assuming that I was on Twitter when they rolled down my timeline) and it seemed as though they chose the most important stories and not every single story that had been posted to their website.

Because I grew up in Kansas City, I took it a step further and followed KMBC news. Amongst the three Kansas City news stations that I followed, KMBC made greater use of the social medium. This led me to believe that either:

1. Both stations, KAKE and KMBC, have specific individuals who play a major role in their social media presence; thereby, making it a priority.

Or,

2. Their corporate company wanted to be sure that each station stayed on top of the game.

I may never know, but this is where my critique takes a major turn.

Over the past couple of weeks, I haven’t seen KAKE or KMBC news roll down my timeline as much as I did before. This could be, in part, because I’m much busier during the day and I don’t make much time for the World Wide Web. However, I have noticed KWCH.

KWCH has not only tweeted more frequently (sometimes every minute), but one thing that separates them from KAKE is that they seem to tweet around the clock. This goes back to my previous statement. I’m busy during the day and I sometimes don’t get off work until the news has gone off so it helps that when I log onto Twitter, I see something from KWCH that just might catch my attention.

KWCH has all of the previous elements that I described with KAKE, but I believe this one factor takes them a little over the top. The only issue that I had with KWCH was that they repeated the same tweet (sometimes in the same hour). Whether that’s by mistake or on purpose, I’m not sure that I need to see the same thing twice unless there has been a major update in the story.

Overall, I am sure that all of the stations I took into account could do much better and add more elements to the tweeting experience.

I follow Brad Stevens, an anchor with KCTV and Tia Ewing, a reporter with WNEM. These two are the only people that I have noticed who will give a short tease to a story and then tweet “Tune in at 5pm” or “I’m at the debate. Any questions?” or something similar. This not only makes me want to watch their shows, but it makes them seem more personable and the interaction is helpful. I think that reporters and anchors should do this much more often.

With me noticing the effort that news outlets put into Facebook or Twitter (or the lack thereof), I think it just goes to show that the future of news will continue to evolve. Futhermore, I’m content with what I’ve seen and with what I’ve learned.